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Monday, February 15, 2016

Supplemental Post - Moms that Suck: Comparing North by Northwest and Now, Voyager

At first I had this a part of my core post but I think I
started rambling a bit too much so I deiced to put it up here as a supplemental
post instead. I wanted to blog post comparing the mother/child relationships in
both North by Northwest and Now, Voyager. There seemed to be so many
similarities and interesting contrasts between the way these relationships were
explored in the films and in the way female and male protagonists dealt their
difficult mothers.

Both films have an overbearing mother character that plays a
crucial in the protagonist’s gender performance. North by Northwest’s
protagonist, Roger Thornhill is criticized and at once oddly dependent on his
mother. He calls her drunk, slurring his words to a cop in a police officer. He
takes to the scene of the crime, the house he swears he was kidnapped to in
beginning of the film. He even is publically embarrasses by her when she asks
his kidnappers in a crowded elevator, “You’re not really trying to kill my son,
are you?” In response, the whole elevator-full of people laughs. Roger looks
mortified. This emphasizes Roger’s emotional immaturity and arrested development.
He’s a boy with his mom. He can’t take care of himself, let alone seem like the
hero of film. Many of these moments between Roger and his mother feel
reminiscent of the Albert Brooks film, Mother – in which Albert Brooks goes
home to live with his mother (played by Debbie Renolds) in order to get over
his writer’s block. Embarrassing moments ensue and to say the least, Debbie
Renold’s character emasculates her son in public unknowingly throughout the
whole film. Like in North by Northwest, this mother/son relationship is
supposed to be funny. The male protagonist’s failure to be a “man,” to be
mature enough to take care himself, take responsibility/agency without the help
his mother – is amusing and even a satisfying surprise for the audience.

This is all a much lighter tone than the mother/daughter’s
relationship in Now, Voyager. Charlotte’s relationship with her mother is an
antagonist force in the film. When the film opens, after years under her
mother’s control, Charlotte is mentally unstable and hysterical. Each time her
mother embarrasses her, she can’t laugh it off. There’s a much more sinister
undertone to their relationship and her mother has a few almost villainous
moments in the film. As a woman protagonist, it’s almost too pathetic,
unacceptable, uncomfortable for her to be so dependent on her mother. It’s not
funny. It’s serious issue for her (and I would say that it’s suggested to be serious
issue for other women too. Sometimes the film felt like a warning to untraditionally
pretty or just socially awkward women to get your act together. Like don’t be
too close to your mother’s girls. It’s bad for yah. And also glasses are bad. )

One of the
ways in which Charlotte regains some agency over her life is denying her mother
control over her body and expression femininity. Of course, a major difference
in Now, Voyager and North by Northwest – is that Charlotte’s appearance is
drastically different when she’s under her mother’s control. Her mother denies
Charlotte the ability to express traditional forms of femininity and sexuality
and as a result, Charlotte is denounced as an ugly duckling, a pretty crazy
ugly duckling one too. Roger still gets to look like a suit-wearing, tan, Cary
Grant. He’s not wearing glasses and Victorian outfits. Though I would watch
that movie….